


Her Yellow Rainboots

by Weddersins



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU - 1990s, Armitage Hux Needs A Hug, Crack, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Holidays, Hux loves his cat, Meet-Cute, No Smut, POV Hux, Reylo - Freeform, Stormpilot, hux/rose, purely self indulgent bullshit, totally nonsense, writer makes no apologies for this crackship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 08:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15214676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weddersins/pseuds/Weddersins
Summary: Armitage Hux needs no one. Not his colleges, his neighbors, or even his parents.He certainly doesn’t need the dark-haired receptionist at his therapist’s office.





	Her Yellow Rainboots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ibecomeaffinity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibecomeaffinity/gifts).



> This a totally self-indulgent oneshot, because I am nothing if not a lover of crackships. 
> 
> Willfully, gleefully AU, set in November 1998 somewhere cold and snowy. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! Special thanks to Ibecomeaffinity for encouraging this nonsense.

Armitage Hux liked no one.

Not his mother. Certainly not his father. Not his colleagues or his neighbors or even his therapist, who sat a meter away blah-blahing endlessly about how he needed to open himself to new connections.  

Fuck new connections. He watched the clock, waiting with growing anger for the session to be over.

He needed no one else in his life. It was just fine the way it was, thanks.

All he needed was Millicent, and in twenty three minutes and thirty-five seconds, she would be expecting her dinner.

This session better not run late.

Dr. Amilyn looked from the clock to his bouncing knee and regarded him with a wan smile. “I think we’ve done enough for day, Armitage. I will see you on Thursday at our usual time.” The smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, and Hux wasn’t surprised.

She hadn’t been exactly good at hiding her distaste for him, even after two years of twice-weekly court mandated sessions. Hux didn’t mind. In fact, he preferred it. He’d never bothered seeking another therapist, even though he’d made little to no verifiable progress according to the reports filed with the court.

He was a miserable bastard and likely to remain so.  

Hux stomped out of the office without so much as a goodbye, pointedly ignoring the cheery salutation from the dark-haired receptionist.

So much the better.

He made it home with seconds to spare, Millicent staring at her empty food dish with a distasteful expression on her slightly squashed face. She received her usual portion of wet food with Hux’s usual measured precision, and at exactly five minutes past the hour he sank into the broken-down armchair he’d liberated from the Salvation Army donation pile a long time ago.

Once the battered TV tray left his lap, Millicent would find her way there. The television on the far wall would play nonsense until the small hours of the morning, keeping him company long after he actually fell asleep.

\--— 

Hux regarded Kylo - no, Ben, he called himself Ben now - from across the grocery store shelf. His large hands quickly moved across the boxes of cereal they were stocking, finishing a section in minutes before moving onto the next one. He whistled a melody without a true beat, a picture of cheerful efficiency.

Hux glowered and shoved a box of cocoa crunchies that was threatening to fall back into its place.

“Are you ever going to lighten up, Hux?” There was a teasing light in Ben’s eyes, and Hux wanted to groan.

He just wanted to do his job and go home to his cat. Why was it so hard for people to understand that?

“I’ve known you longer than I’ve known almost anyone. You’ve been a miserable bastard all through Basic, and then the war, then the -”

Hux held up a hand, slowing Ben’s memories with a scowl. “Yes, we both know exactly how long we’ve been stuck together. Has it occurred to you that perhaps I’m happy the way I am?”

Ben chuckled good-naturedly, undeterred by Hux’s snippy attitude. “Armitage, you wouldn’t know happy if it bit you on the ass.”

Hux rolled his eyes, setting another cereal box on the shelf with a bit more force than necessary. “And you’re suddenly an expert on the subject? You’ve been with that scruffy little waif for a few months and now -”

“Hey, watch what you say about Rey.” Ben’s tone dipped into darkness for a moment, his black eyes clouding. Hux was reminded of the dangerous, unhinged man he had once been before - well,  _before_.

“Ben, you met her as she was digging for food in a dumpster.”

“It wasn’t food, it was scrap metal. She’s an artist.”

“She makes art out of garbage.”

“She makes  _sculptures_  out of  _recycled materials_.” 

“She was still scavenging through a dumpster.”

“Rey’s resourceful.” This was said with a certain amount of pride, and stubbornness.

Hux rolled his eyes, but dropped the subject. It wasn’t wise to upset Ben. Not that he cared what the man thought of him in the long run - but he still liked his teeth in their proper location. Ben’s fist had rearranged enough mouths without adding his own to the list.

“How long have you two been together, anyway?” He didn’t care. Not really. But keeping a good relationship with Ben was beneficial to his health.

“Almost a year. A year next month, actually.” The softest smile Hux had ever seen curved Ben’s lips, and it turned his stomach.

He grunted noncommittally, and resumed stocking the shelves in easy silence.

When they finished, the late autumn sun was just beginning to peek over the back of the Food Mart. He waved off Ben’s daily request to join him for a cup of coffee, and walked down the street to his apartment as the city began to stir.

Millicent greeted him with a yowl, and a pointed look towards her food bowl. He shrugged off his jacket and scratched her ears in apology. Today, he was nearly three minutes behind.

\-----

He was facing a closed door. Why was the door closed? Hux jiggled the handle again, frowning. He looked at his wristwatch, frowning. He wasn’t late. He was twelve minutes before his eleven o’clock appointment, the usual time.

But the lights were off inside, and the door was locked all the same.

Just as he was contemplating calling Dr. Amilyn, a hand brushed his shoulder. It took all of his self control not to jump out of his skin.

Hux hated being touched.

The culprit was the dark haired receptionist, who was eyeing him worriedly. “Hi, Mister Hux. The office is closed today.”

_Mister_  Hux. Once he had been General. Once he had been...

“Closed? Why wasn’t I told on Tuesday?”

She smirked, a goofy twinkle in her eyes that Hux didn’t appreciate. “I did tell you on Tuesday. It’s Thanksgiving today, we’re closed today and tomorrow.”

Thanksgiving. Of course. Bloody Americans and their holidays.

Hux tried very hard not to think of the last Thanksgiving day he had consciously acknowledged. He was failing miserably. The memory of his father’s fists had turned out to fade far slower than the bruises they had left.

She must have noticed the blank look in his eyes, because her face fell. “Are you alright?”

No, not really. His schedule was thrown off. Now, he had two hours at complete loose ends and -

“Yes, of course I’m alright.” Hux huffed, irritated with himself and with her. “Why wouldn’t I be alright?”

The receptionist raised a dark eyebrow, looking up at him from his hat to his worn boots. “Because you’ve been standing in silence for the last three minutes like you’re running through every possible option in your head at the speed of light.” 

Fuck.

She tilted her chin up, as if she had just decided something. “Alright, come on. I’m freezing, and you need coffee.” The smile was back.

What?

Hux scowled at her presumption. “No I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. Let me get my wallet, I locked it inside yesterday, which is why I’m out here now instead of warm inside somewhere. Because I’m a walking disaster. I’ll be right back.” She smiled and ducked inside the door, true to her word rummaging around in her desk as if looking for her wallet.

This was his chance.

He bolted down the alley to his left before she turned for the door.

Millicent seemed happy to have him home two hours early, at least. She purred contentedly in his lap as he watched the last few moments of a parade on the television, his heavy eyes closing just as the cheery fat man in his sleigh rolled across the screen.

\-----

After another long weekend of overnight shelf-stocking with a heart-eyed Ben Organa, Hux was almost relieved to have his therapy session on Tuesday night.

Not quite. But almost.

He stomped through the door with his usual lack of good grace exactly twelve minutes before his scheduled appointment time.

When he saw the dark-haired girl at the receptionist desk wearing a teasing smirk on her round face, his stomach fell.

“You stood me up, Mister Hux.”

He bristled. “Actually, if you want to get technical, I ran out on you.”

To his utter amazement, she laughed. “I suppose you’re right. Sorry. I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable.”

Hux blinked. She was apologizing... to him? 

Some words from his father had once said jumbled around the back of his head. The best lies always contained some truth. “I wasn’t - I had to feed my cat.”

She nodded sagely with the faintest of smiles. “Of course. Well, I hope you and your cat had a lovely Thanksgiving.” The phone rang, distracting her.

Hux sank into a nearby chair, completely thrown. He listened to her conversation with half an ear - something about scheduling a new patient in on a Wednesday morning slot.

When Dr. Amilyn opened the door to her office, he nearly jumped. He followed the doctor behind her heavy wooden door on autopilot, his mind completely elsewhere.

Rose. The receptionist’s name was Rose.

\-----

Christmas was always a busy season at the Food Mart, and Hux was restocking hams in the center cooler for the second time this week already.

Ben was whistling an off-kilter Christmas song, stacking eggnog cartons and jugs of milk in the dairy case behind him.

It was almost - but not quite - nice.

“What are your plans for Christmas, Hux?”

The feeling of contentment sped away.

“Same thing I do every year, Ben.”

“Drown yourself in regret and a bottle of cheap whisky?”

“Something like that.” 

“Come on, Hux. We’re not fighting anymore. Come spend Christmas with Rey and I.”

“I literally can’t think of anything I’m less likely to do.” Another ham landed on the pile with a heavy thud.

“I know you’ve got no one else. And Rey’s a good cook. Everyone should taste her sweet potato casserole at least once before they die, even a grump like you.”

“You were once a grump like me too, Ben, don’t forget.”

“Yeah, and then I had Rey’s cooking last Christmas. Look at me now.” Ben chuckled, and turned his attention back to the milk gallons.

Hux did look at him, for a moment. His long hair was washed, tied back in a knot and exposing overlarge ears once kept hidden. His clothes were well-fitting and clean. He smiled easily.

It was a far cry from the strung-out, greasy-haired man with a hair-trigger temper he had once been. In war, in crime, in prison.

Ben had changed.

But Hux himself had remained the same.

The thought gave him a pause that he hadn’t expected. The ham he had been holding slipped from his fingers to roll off the top of the pile.

If Ben noticed had him spacing out, he didn’t mention it. “Well, invites open. Don’t even have to tell me. Just show up. Same place as always. We’ll have plenty of food... always do.”

They finished the rest of their shift in silence, Hux mentally counting the minutes till he could escape the bright overhead lights for the safety of his dim apartment.

He turned down the coffee once more, walking home in silence in the stillness of the predawn city. 

\-----

Hux was roused from sleep by a loud arguing outside his door. Without even looking outside, he knew who it was.

Gently displacing Millicent from his lap to the floor, he stumbled from the recliner to the door. He unlocking the three locks - chain, deadbolt, doorknob - and flung open the door in annoyance.

His neighbors, Poe and Finn, were at it again. Finn held a string of colored Christmas lights aloft over Poe’s head, just out of his reach. Neither of them took any notice of Hux, or his thunderous expression.

“I’m putting these up, and that’s final.”

“It’s tacky as hell, Finn!”

“You decorate how you like for every other holiday, Christmas is mine. You can shut up or shove off.”

Their ancient dog, Bebe, raised her head for a moment to consider first Finn and then Hux. She blinked watery eyes at him before laying back down to resume her slumber, unperturbed by her masters’ fight. 

“Might I remind you two that some of us work the night shift?” Hux was striving for a growl, but it came out as a grump instead.

The two men had the good grace to look ashamed, Finn lowering the Christmas lights and accidentally hitting Poe with them in the process. “Sorry, Armitage.”

The knowledge that he had not completely lost the ability to command respect mollified him somewhat. “It’s Hux. Keep it to a dull roar next time. And goodnight.” He shut the door with finality. Relocking the three locks - doorknob, deadbolt, chain - he flopped back down in the battered recliner with a creak of springs. Millicent resumed her soft purrs without too much cajoling.

Drifting back off to sleep, he thought he heard Rose’s voice outside the living room window. But that was absurd.

\-----

“We appear to have someone in common.”

Hux walked in through the glass door, already distracted because he was only eleven minutes early instead of twelve. When Rose called out to him, the gears in his brain ground to a halt. “Excuse me?”

She smiled. “We have someone in common. My foster brother is your neighbor.”

Shit - it  _had_  been her voice outside his window yesterday. Hux blinked, dumbfounded.

“Finn’s a goober, but he’s got a good heart. He felt bad for waking you up... especially over his stupid argument with Poe.”

“It’s... fine.” Hux wheezed our after a moment. Rose knew where he lived. Rose knew his neighbors. Rose knew his neighbors better than  _he_  did.

The memory of the blinking lights around their doorframe this morning prodded the speech center of his brain. “It seems Poe relented. 

Rose nodded, her short black hair bouncing as she did. “He always does. It’s a token fight.”

“Then why does it have to be so loud?”

She laughed, and Hux wanted to smile and melt into the carpet from embarrassment all at once.

He settled for an upward quirk of his mouth. It felt strange.

“Anyway - Finn wanted me to pass along that he was sorry. Poe, too.“

“It’s alright.” And surprisingly, it was.

The phone rang, and Rose smiled at him before answering it.

Hux sat in contemplative silence in the waiting room, and thoroughly ignored Dr. Amilyn throughout the entire session. Rose had been in foster care. She had a foster brother. Her foster brother was his neighbor. She knew where he lived. 

He wasn’t sure how all that made him feel. 

Hux was so distracted he forgot to watch the clock, and was only reminded that the session was over when his therapist stood to leave.

He was five minutes late to feed Millicent. She didn’t seem to mind.

\--— 

It was the day before Christmas Eve, and by now Ben had given up on simply humming and was actually singing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

Hux wanted to be annoyed. He should be annoyed. But he wasn’t.

Ben actually had a nice voice.

Hux almost, but not quite, wanted to hum along. Instead, he stacked the cans of pumpkin pie filling in some semblance of a rhythm. 

Ben switched to Jingle Bell Rock, and they spent the last hour of their shift running through Ben’s catalogue of Christmas carols.

It had been so comfortable that for once Hux actually hesitated before refusing the cup of coffee. He accepted the slip of paper with Ben and Rey’s address without argument, turning it over and over in his palm as he walked home.

Millicent wound around his ankles, already purring as he opened his front door. He was right on time.

\-----

Hux was annoyed with himself when he jiggled the handle of the therapist’s office again, seconds before realizing his mistake. It was Christmas Eve. The office was going to be closed. Again.

He’d walked all the way in the cold for nothing.  

There was a familiar chuckle to his left. “I figured I’d find you here.”

Rose again, wearing a ridiculously large puffy jacket and bright blue knit hat. “For a man who is so punctual, you sure are bad at keeping up with the date. I’m thinking about buying you a calendar for Christmas.” 

Hux scoffed, but there was no true malice in it. He tried not to dwell on the fact that she had mentioned buying him a Christmas present. “Easy to forget the day when they’re all the same.” 

He winced internally. That had come off far more pathetic than he had intended.

Rose frowned. “Well, then this one is going to be different. Start walking, I was heading to Finn’s anyway. You can keep me company on the walk and then you can keep me company with Finn and Poe.”

Hux balked immediately. “I have to...”

“Feed the cat? Don’t worry. It’s not like you don’t live next door.” She smiled, as if that settled it. She started off down the sidewalk without so much as a glance behind her. “Come on!”

Hux remained rooted to the ground, desperately trying to figure out a way out of this. He couldn’t just lose her and go home again, she was headed right next door. He couldn’t go to work. He detested crowds, and anywhere else was going to be slamming busy with shoppers finishing their last-minute errands.

He was struck with the sudden, all-consuming need to call Dr. Amilyn. He had never had a desperate desire to talk to her in the two years he had been her patient, no matter how dark things had seemed.

Was this what they called a crisis?

Rose stopped a few feet down the sidewalk, her blue hat standing out against the brown-brick buildings that surrounded them. “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?”

Hux looked at his boots, covered in anti-ice chemical. He looked at the alley to his left. He looked at the locked door.

And then he looked at Rose in her knit hat and her puffy jacket and her - were those yellow rainboots instead of proper snow shoes?

He started walking towards her. Sometimes surrender was a better option. 

\-----

 When Hux stumbled back into his apartment under the pretext of having to work in a few hours (a convenient lie), he felt like throwing up.

He supposed the afternoon had been pleasant enough. He hadn’t hated it. So why were his palms sweating, his heart racing, his stomach threatening to return all of Finn’s Christmas cookies with interest? 

He hadn’t had _that_ much to drink. He drank more than that on a regular day off.  

It wasn’t the others hadn’t been eminently pleasant - they had. Perhaps too pleasant. He’d never had so many Christmas cookies or glasses of extremely spiked eggnog shoved at him in his entire life. He’d probably eaten more at the gaudily over-decorated nextdoor apartment than he’d eaten on his own in weeks. It turns out Finn, in addition to having absolutely no restraint when it came to Christmas decorations, was a very good cook. 

Rose floated between where he had glued himself to the couch and the overheated kitchen, seemingly acting as a buffer between him and the other two. She laughed freely and easily, her black hair cast in a brilliant multicolor halo from the thousands of Christmas bulbs around the apartment.

Hux found himself wanting to laugh with her. 

Somewhere around hour two a drunken buzz had settled in. He was still seated on the couch that had seen better days and somewhat distractedly watching an automaton Santa climbing a ladder when Hux had realized he didn’t completely hate this. He’d allowed himself to smile at a joke Poe had made, which in turn caused the dark-haired man to grin even wider.  

Rose had shoved his shoulder good-naturedly and went to help Finn with something in the small kitchen. The level of profanity seemed to be escalating to match the amount of food exiting the tiny space. 

Poe had chuckled as she left. “She’s good people, Rose Tico. This is our Christmas - she spends Christmas Day with her sister, Christmas Eve with her brother. Been like this for - oh, five years now? Long before we moved to this apartment. They all left the home at the same time.”

“Was it a... good place?” Hux found himself invested in the conversation for once, instead of just keeping up appearances. The eggnog - that’s what it was. The boozy eggnog was making him care. These people were nothing to him. He didn’t need to know their sob stories. 

Poe shrugged. “They had each other, which is more than most in that situation. But no... I don’t think it was an especially good place.” Poe fell silent, as if recalling conversations which he’d rather have not had. 

“Sorry.” Hux supplied quickly, realizing he’d opened a can of worms.

Poe waved him off. “Nah, don’t sweat it. It’s natural to be curious. Rose would probably tell you herself if you asked her.”

Hux made a mental note to never, ever bring it up with Rose. Demons from the past had to stay where they belonged - the past.

Rose had returned moments later with three red Solo cups, one in each hand and one held between her teeth. She smiled around the plastic, handing one cup to Poe and one to Hux. “It’s time for an Old Fashioned before lunch. Finn’s almost done.”

Poe had rolled his eyes and groaned. “Rose, it’s nearly 2:30! We were supposed to eat over an hour ago.”

Rose laughed and took a sip of her drink. “Hence the Old Fashioned.” She’d settled back on the couch beside him, almost - but not quite - touching his shoulder.

He found himself unwilling to shy away, despite every instinct in his head telling him to run.

The rest of the afternoon had passed in a haze, faces and food and drinks and Bebe’s dark nose stealing scraps alongside multicolored Christmas purgatory all rolling into one warm blur. 

Perhaps it had just been too much. Hux sank into his recliner, Millicent leaping up almost immediately with a warm meow. She didn’t seem to mind the dramatic schedule change. The room spun as he buried his fingers in her marmalade fur. Hux closed his eyes, hoping sleep would alleviate whatever  _this_  was. 

\-----

Hux awoke several hours later drenched in a cold sweat. The winter sun had long ago set, leaving his apartment in darkness. The comforting flicker of the television was missing and Millicent’s eyes glowed unnervingly in the dark.

He threw himself from the chair, sending the cat yowling to the floor. She scuttled under the decrepit Formica table, eyes peeking out from the darkness. 

Unable to look at her, Hux fumbled for the television remote and popped on something, anything, to bring back the light into the room.

The familiar commercial jingle for the car place down the road filled his ears, and Hux sighed in relief.

He stood in the middle of the room, shaking. He carded his fingers through red hair, disturbing the precisely placed strands.

What was he doing?

He’d disrupted his entire day.

He’d followed a girl – a girl whom he had said less than fifty words to up till that point – into the home of strangers. He’d spent time with perfect strangers – on Christmas, no less. He’d fed their dog. Drank with them. Ate their food.

And he’d enjoyed it.

He wanted to do it _again_. He wanted to talk to the girl with the round face and the bright eyes and the bouncy dark hair and make her _laugh_ like he’d managed to do on accident earlier.

He wanted her around.

No. This wasn’t him.

Hux stomped to the kitchen, opening the pantry and removing one of the few items stashed within – the half-full bottle of cheap whisky.

A glance at the television told him it was just after midnight. Officially, Christmas Day.

He flopped back into the recliner with the bottle in hand, settling in for his long winter’s night. Soon, the drink would bring the memories. And more drink would drown them.

It was the traditional shedding of his skin, the purging of his demons that kept him functional. This year would be no different. No – not quite. This time he would have to rid himself of Rose as well.

The whisky burned its winding way down his throat, and he welcomed the pain. 

\-----

Hux swayed in the cold air, breath clouding in front of him. He’d forgotten his coat, but had remembered the bottle of whisky. That was the important thing anyway, he reasoned. The whisky. It was for Ben. His friend, Ben. Ben and his girlfriend Rey. She was going to be his fiancé soon. Ben had told him.

Ben told him a lot of things. Hux always listened.

He rang the doorbell again, perhaps pressing it slightly longer than he had meant to. Scowling, he fumbled for the little scrap of paper in his pants pocket. He dropped it to the ground before he could read the numbers scribbled on it.

As he was fumbling for it, the door swung open to reveal Rey in a bathrobe, looking a little worried.

“Happy Christmas, Armitage.” She said softly, her hazel eyes flicking from annoyed to concerned. Hux scowled up at her from his position on the stoop. He didn’t need her pity. He was fine.

It didn’t even register that she had called him Armitage.

“Hap’y Christmas, Rey.” Was that a hiccup? Couldn’t be.

“Come on in – where’s your coat? You walked all the way here without a coat? I’ve got a pot of coffee going. I’ll bring you a cup. Ben! Ben – look who’s here!” Rey’s voice held false cheer as Ben lumbered into the room, dressed in nothing but pajama pants and a loose tee shirt with the words “the BIG Peach” emblazoned across the front. His bare feet smacked on the old hardwood as he made his way over to where Hux was standing.

He thrust the bottle of whisky towards him, doing his best to smile even as the room was spinning. “Merry Christmas, Kylo. No, wait, it’s Ben now. ‘m sorry.”

“No worries, Hux. No worries. Cutty Sark, huh?” Ben eyed the bottle before carefully setting it on the nearby bookshelf. “That brings back some memories.”

Hux nodded, but regretted it as the room spun again. It was doing that a lot lately. Maybe he needed some water.

Before he could register what was happening, he found himself sitting on a comfortable couch with a cup of steaming black coffee pushed into his hands. The warm ceramic stung – his fingers had been colder than he thought. He took a sip, enjoying the warm fire winding it’s way down his frozen throat.

Different than the whisky, but nice.

Rey padded silently out the room, shooting Ben a concerned look which Hux felt he hadn’t been meant to see. “Am I too early?” He asked quietly, scowling at the tree across the room which refused to stay still.

Ben chuckled. “No, no of course not. You’re right on time.”

Hux took another sip of the coffee, and Ben sighed mightily. “Hux, it’s been two years… since. You haven’t let it go. You’re still living in prison. What are you doing to yourself, man?”

Hux shook his head again, immediately regretting it. “It’s not working anymore.”

“What isn’t working anymore?”

“Anything.”

Ben clapped him on the shoulder, sending a tiny bit of hot coffee over Hux’s fingers. “Then change tactics. We aren’t fighting a war anymore. We aren’t running with the mob anymore. We’re not trying to stay alive, anymore. This is life. You’ve got to live it.”

“I am living.” He was breathing, wasn’t he? 

Ben shook his head. “But you’re not alive. You go to work, you go to therapy – I know you’re still doing it, don’t give me that look – and you go home. You live in a prison of minutes. That’s not living, Hux. That’s surviving.”

“I had lunch with my neighbors yesterday.” Hux said this with a certain amount of drunken pride, sticking a finger practically under Ben’s nose for emphasis.

Ben blinked, staring at Hux dumbly. “You… what?”

“My therapist’s receptionist dragged me there. She has a pretty name. Like a flower. Pansy? No. Lily. That’s not it either. Doesn’t matter what her name is. She’s strange. Wears yellow rainboots in the snow. Talks to me. She makes my head hurt. I like her.” 

“You _what_?” 

Hux unceremoniously drained the coffee mug, completely missing Ben’s horrified stare. “Can I – can I lay down for a minute?”

Ben gestured helplessly at the couch, and Hux lowered himself backwards carefully lest the furniture suddenly shift and throw him to the floor. Darkness took him in moments.

\-----

When he awoke again, it was to a splitting headache. An empty trashcan was to his left, and a glass of water sat beside a bottle of aspirin on the coffee table. He rolled over carefully to reach the water, disturbing the wooly knit afghan but somehow managing not to knock it to the floor completely.

At least the damned tree had stopped spinning. 

Hux sat up carefully, mercifully managing to avoid spilling the water all over the place. He was imposing enough as it was without making a mess to clean up.

Perhaps he could sneak out the front door without Ben or Rey noticing.

Worth a try.

As soon as he stood, he got a clear view of his exit. There was a pair of yellow rain boots laying innocuously to the left of the heavy door, one standing and one knocked to the floor. 

No – that wasn’t possible.

Poe’s words flew back into his muddled brain, and Hux barely suppressed a hearty groan. There was no way Rose was Rey’s foster sister. There was no way his luck was that terrible. It had to be a hallucination.

He took two wobbling steps towards the door before he heard her voice.

It would have been so easy to leap the last two meters to the door, fling it open and run out into the cold winter air. He could have done it. He would have done it. 

But Rey was suddenly in his path, arms folded over her chest and one eyebrow raised upward. She no longer wore the bathrobe, but a pair of black leggings and an oversized, handmade, rainbow colored sweater that hung down over one shoulder. “Oh no you don’t, Armitage. You don’t get to show up at my house at dawn on Christmas morning without a coat, pass out on my couch, and leave before you eat lunch. I won’t have it. Besides, you look a fright. You’d scare anyone in your path.” 

He bristled a little at the use of his first name, but he allowed it if only for the simple fact that her British accent made it sound like his mother’s voice.

Rey took his silence for acquiescence and dragged him bodily into the eat-in kitchen. “Armitage has decided to rejoin the land of the living. I’m going to check on the turkey in the oven. Ben, would you check on this turkey right here, please?”

Ben got up from the small wooden table where he had been conversing easily with Rose and made his way over towards him.

Rose, who was wearing a gaudy Christmas sweater with a giant cat on it. Rose, who’s black hair was pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck. Rose, who was wearing glasses he had never seen before. Rose – that Rose – sat at the table looking like a deer caught in headlights.

Hux felt sure he was staring back in much the same way. He was suddenly extremely aware that he was wearing the same set of clothing he had worn yesterday, now rumpled and disheveled – and he felt sure Rose noticed that, as well.

“Hux, did you take the aspirin Rey left for you? I’ll grab you a fresh mug of coffee. Well come on, go sit down, I’ll introduce you to Rey’s sister. What’s the matter… with you. Oh. _Oh._ ” Ben looked from Hux, to Rose, to the yellow rainboots still in plain view by the front door. “Well… fuck me, then.” He ran a hand through his shaggy black hair and huffed out a breath. 

Rose broke the staring contest first, leaning back in her chair to cross her arms over her chest. “So _this_ is your best friend who’s having an existential crisis on Christmas Day. Armitage Hux, if I didn’t know better I’d say you were following me.”

“I -”

She smiled kindly. “Don’t look so flustered, I know you aren’t _actually_ following me. So… how do you know Rey and Ben?”

“Ben was… is…”

“Hux has been my coworker for... a very long time. He served in the army with me number of years ago.” Ben interjected, steering Hux to the nearest chair. He was eternally grateful Ben didn’t elaborate. He felt sure the fact that he was a felon was all over any information Rose had access to at the office, but he didn’t need his crimes spelled out for her. Or for himself, if he was being honest.

“Ben’s been dating my foster sister for just over a year now.”

“Poe told me yesterday that you spend Christmas Day with your sister.” Hux choked out, the words coming out in a jumble. Ben stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

“Yes of course, can’t you see the resemblance?” Rose said in a mock British accent, rolling her eyes. Rey threw a dishrag at her from across the room, which Rose easily caught. “We have been doing this now for years. The knuckleheads go see Poe’s parents on Christmas Day, and we all get together on New Years. Gotta say, though, this apartment is much nicer than the last place.”

Rey scowled from her place by the stove. “Hush, you, or you’ll get nothing.”

“Oh, you mean like the year before last when your apartment was so overrun with roaches you baked some into the -” 

Rey squawked, chucking another towel at Rose’s head. This one hit home. Rose was laughing from somewhere deep inside her chest, and Ben was chuckling in his easy way.

Hux was surprised to find himself laughing as well. He caught Ben staring at him again from the corner of his eye, but brushed it off. 

“So Armitage, I think you’re going to need to explain how you know my sister.” Rey practically had her whole head in the oven, the strange three-bun configuration nearly brushing the top of it as she stretched to baste the turkey.

“She’s -”

“We run into each other at work a lot.” Rose caught his eye, tilting her head slightly. Hux felt a rush of something warm in his chest – was she really trying to protect him by not revealing the fact that he went to therapy? What had he done to deserve that loyalty?

“She’s my therapist’s receptionist.” He smiled back at Rose in a manner he hoped was reassuring – there were no secrets from Ben. And if there were no secrets from Ben, then Rey would know everything too.

“She’s – oh. _oh._ ” Rey looked at Ben with wide eyes. Of course Ben had just _had_ to tell Rey. With that one drunken sentence he’d doomed himself to a hellish set of questions the next time they were alone, he felt sure. 

But looking at the warmth in Rose’s dark eyes, Hux was no longer certain that he minded.

Rey unceremoniously plopped a huge turkey in the middle of the tiny table, and Hux was a little concerned the wood would give way under the weight of the bird. Ben brought over an assortment of sides in white corningware dishes, setting the fabled sweet potato casserole right in front of him.

Ben hadn’t been lying. Rey’s cooking was amazing.

“So, when are you going to tell me more about this cat of yours?” Rose said around a bite of roll.

Hux nearly choked on his mouthful, covering it with a sip of water. “She’s… lovely.”

“I’ve got a little terrier, you know…”

The meal stretched on for ages, bottles of cheap wine being opened and drained in short order and most of the turkey disappearing before they called it quits. There was truly nothing left of the sweet potatoes.

He wondered if it was his imagination, or if Rose kept knocking her legs into his on purpose throughout the meal. Rey, for her part, kept swiveling her head like a hawk as she stared between the two of them in what she probably meant to be a surreptitious manner but was truly anything but. 

Ben _did_ keep kicking Rey under the table, a fact which she was pointedly ignoring.

By the time he walked out of their apartment several hours later, doggie bag for Millicent in hand, he knew that Rose had studied psychology in school but never finished her degree. That she liked the color blue. That she had a collection of tiny ceramic animals. And that she was looking forward to seeing him on Tuesday evening.

\-----

Which was why it was such a shock when the receptionist’s desk was empty as Hux walked in Tuesday night. He paused, staring at the desk in confusion. Perhaps she was just in the restroom.

He sat in his usual seat, tugging on his pants nervously. The twelve minutes before his appointment passed in agonizing silence, with no sign of Rose.

His entire appointment was spent hyper-aware of the small ceramic horse in his pocket. He left it on the still-empty desk on his way out.

\--— 

“She wasn’t at work on Tuesday?” Ben asked with a frown. It was three in the morning, and they were restocking bottles of carbonated juice – shampagne, Ben had called it with a chuckle – at the front of the store.

Hux shook his head, mad at himself for being upset. Mad at himself for bringing it up with Ben. Mad at himself for _caring_. It got him nowhere.

He didn’t tell Ben about the little horse. It would do no good.

Ben sighed. “I’m sure there’s a reason for it, Hux. Don’t get yourself all twisted up in knots.”

No, it wasn’t knots. But the warm feeling he had been carrying in his chest was turning back into ice.

They spent the rest of the shift in silence. He refused the coffee once more, though he wanted to accept. It was still dark as he trudged home in the cold.

Within half an hour, he was asleep in front of the television with Millicent purring away on his lap. Just as things had always been.

\-----

This time, Hux knew the door would be locked. But he showed up at his Thursday morning appointment twelve minutes early regardless.

It was New Years Eve.

He had on his warmest coat, prepared to wait. Millicent had been given extra apologies and an extra spoonful of food. She didn’t seem to mind.

Hux leaned against the brick wall of his therapist’s office, looking for yellow rainboots or a bright blue knitted hat. The thought that it was probably Rose who had made the wooly blanket at Rey and Ben’s apartment flitted into his brain. The color of the wool was the same.

Three minutes before his appointment time, a tap on his shoulder startled him. “I was serious about the calendar, you know.” 

Hux jumped, but only a little. He turned to face Rose with something akin to a smile on his face. He was rather out of practice.

She was standing in the ankle-deep snow, wearing those blasted yellow rainboots. Great white flakes had started to fall once more, sticking to the blue wool of her knitted hair and the escaped strands of black hair fallen around her shoulders. Her dark eyes were full of warmth, and he knew he was going to lose himself in them. 

Perhaps he already had.

“I’m sorry about Tuesday. It wasn’t – I wasn’t trying to avoid you. I had to take off work unexpectedly. My dog ate an entire onion because he’s got approximately three braincells, so I had to rush him to the vet.” She twisted the bottom of her scarf between her fingers, an anxious movement if he had ever seen one.

“Oh.” A pause – he should be saying something else. “Is he alright?”

“Oh, he’s fine. Sadly, he’s still afflicted with a terminal case of stupidity.”

Hux barked out a laugh, and Rose did the same.

She smirked, raising an eyebrow coyly. “I need to thank you for the Wade pony.”

He opened his mouth to deflect, suddenly embarrassed over the tiny thing.

Rose raised a gloved finger in a mock scold. “Don’t try to deny it, I know it was you. No one else would know about those figurines to even think of leaving me one. Thank you, Hux.” 

He puffed out the breath he had been holding, clouding the cold air between them. “Call me Armitage.” 

“Armitage it is, then.” She smiled again. He felt like smiling, too.

Rose dropped the end of her scarf, shifting her feet in the snow. “Well, Armitage, what are you doing New Year’s Eve?”

“I don’t… exactly know.”

“Now you do. Come on, let’s go. It’s Rey’s turn to host. Finn’s bringing the baked goods, she’s doing the mains. They flip every other year so there’s less competition.”

“I can imagine.” And he honesty could. They were both excellent cooks, but after Finn’s profanity-laced baking and Rey’s dishrag throwing, he couldn’t imagine the two of them sharing space in the kitchen very well.

“Well, come on then. They’re already expecting you.” She held out her gloved hand with a smile, and Hux stared at it dumbly. He looked once more down the alleyway to his left, realizing that if he went with Rose it was truly going to change his life forever. 

He was ready.

Grabbing her gloved hand in his own, they fell in step on the snowy sidewalk. “So – when is it your turn to host?”

Rose laughed, slowing her steps for only a moment. “Oh glory, never. I’m a horrible cook.”

Hux grinned. “Oh good, we have something in common.”

They disappeared around the corner, the dim winter sun shadowing their steps.

**Author's Note:**

> Edited 7/27/18 - So, the absolutely wonderful Nick (monkeycup on tumblr) created an incredible piece of fanart for this fic. I'm posting the link below so y'all can check it out - it's absolutely amazing and I still don't have the words to describe how beyond tickled and pleased I am over this piece of fanart.
> 
> http://monkeycup.tumblr.com/post/176163963873/read-the-rosehux-fanfic-her-yellow-rainboots-by
> 
> I never anticipated the response this fic has gotten; Every single comment and kudos has brightened my day - thank you all.


End file.
